


Consolation No. 3

by wiltedcyclamen



Series: Piano and Strings [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood and Injury, Death, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, One Shot, Short Story, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:01:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26863303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wiltedcyclamen/pseuds/wiltedcyclamen
Summary: “No doubt that the cold messed with his nerves, he thought, and nothing more; he shelved the book and burned the papers in the fireplace.”
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: Piano and Strings [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1959724
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Consolation No. 3

**_Nestled between ancient_ ** firs and wilted geraniums sat a log cabin. Smoke wafted from the chimney, which was common this time of year. Harvey, the man who had owned the cabin for a decade or so, poked his head outside to feel how chill the air was. He shut the door as soon as the first breeze brushed his face, and he went back upstairs. There were three rooms on the top floor; Harvey’s bedroom, a bathroom, and an extra room that he kept locked at all times. The gelid wood floors nipped at his feet as he pattered through the hallway.

He went into his bedroom and pulled the closet door open; it creaked as it moved. A puffy red jacket that had been reliable to him the past two years hung on the rightmost clothes hanger, and he shrugged it on. He grabbed more things from around the cabin: brown snow boots, two packets of hand warmers, a thermos filled with scalding water, leg warmers, a black wool hat with matching earmuffs and gloves, and a shopping list that comprised only five items. He put out the crackling fire and grabbed his leather wallet from the clean coffee table.

Dark grey clouds hung in the sky as constant shadows, the ground lifeless to reflect it. Every week he took a walk to the small town to purchase groceries, an unmarked trail in the dense woods providing him passage. The winter always made it harder, but the uneven spots where he had trodden over the years guided him, so he trudged through the snow. 

He thought - for a split second, no more - he saw a familiar person walking down the trail. A sad look was plastered on the stranger’s face, and the person held up a hand - a weak wave aimed at Harvey, the other hand carrying a suitcase. Did the man mistake this for an inn? Harvey walked faster, trying to go to the stranger to question him. 

He reached him, offering the man the thermos because he surely must’ve been freezing to his bones. Then Harvey blinked several times, and the stranger disappeared, a trick of the light leaving him staring at pine needles and bark. The ground shifted underneath him, a thud echoing in the forest, but he moved forward.

Some snow fell off of a pine tree next to him, the trees not capable of holding the weight, and he didn’t pay it any mind. He didn’t look down either and occasionally stared at the sky. A weight had somehow settled on his chest, in the middle of his sternum, and had been lifted at the same time, leaving him stuck in the middle between stress.

Around twenty minutes after he started, the clouds poured all the snow they could onto the ground. It stacked and stacked until it was below his wobbly knees, and soon his legs were freezing. It was sticky, clinging to the bottom of his boots and eventually falling off in clumps as he took another step. The only warmth was sliding down his throat as he sipped from the thermos, and the hand warmers shoved under his gloves. Everything in the distance became fuzzy and difficult to see as if a thick fog settled over his eyes. Pulling his hat down further over his brown curls, he huffed. Once, twice. He turned around, the sound of snow crunching under his boots drowned out by the howling winds. 

There would be no shopping trip that day, not with a blizzard settling in. 

On the walk home, he recalled his brother. No birds were chirping amongst the trees as they usually did, and so his thoughts were filled only with memories. As he slogged up to the cabin door sometime later, white covering every inch of his jacket, his mind remained on his brother. He wasn’t sure why; he hadn’t been in contact with the man in years. He remembered his brother as a shorter man, although maybe he had grown taller in the past few years. They both had hollowed out eyes, nearly pitch-black irises, as if something haunted them for their entire lives. Harvey remembered that look well, especially after those long nights when their father would stagger through their shared bedroom, and drag his brother out to the hallway, him kicking and screaming and breaking his fingernails against the wood floor. 

Another look he remembered was the rage on his brother’s face as he shouted at Harvey - the last time they ever spoke. His brother’s eyes had been wide that day, flickering from the candlelight as he towered over his younger sibling. He screamed that he would never talk to him again at only eighteen-years-old, his hand high in the air holding Harvey’s only outlet. A rugged, hand-bound journal had contained all of his thoughts, and he remembered most of them. He still had those thoughts, sometimes slivers, and other times full force, and he knew they weren’t normal. His brother’s reaction had been evidence of that. So, his brother moved out after his fear consumed him - terrified and sick of their father and confused and scared about Harvey, who held an interest in darker things. Harvey, though, had been left alone with the monster, being four years younger. His brother had kept his vow, though; Harvey couldn’t even remember his voice. 

Shaking his head, he opened the door with trembling fingers, a sudden heat boiling in his gut, pressure still on his chest.

After brewing hot tea, he got a fire going; the popping sounds soothed his worries about the blizzard battering against the windows. A novel in his hands, he read about finer people and finer things - things he would never have and people he would never talk to. A few moments, more wind, a turn of the page, a shattering memory or two. A ripping sound brought him back to the ground, and he noticed several pages torn out of the book. 

No doubt that the cold messed with his nerves, he thought, and nothing more; he shelved the book and burned the papers in the fireplace. Their jagged edges crinkled and singed orange to grey. Tea finished and bitter in his mouth, he eventually dozed on the couch. 

* * *

By morning, the violent storm had come to a stop. The snow was unmoving on the ground from what Harvey could see out of the frosted windows next to the fireplace, besides the occasional flurry that rattled the panes and the pines. The sun was out but provided no warmth, and he bundled up once again. He filled up the thermos over the kitchen sink, crimson stains on the bottom of the metal that went unnoticed. 

The trail had no beginning, the snow compact and stuck together in a massive sheet. He sunk almost past his knees, snow pants providing some protection, and started to shovel past his doorstep. The snow crunched and crumbled as the shovel pierced it, and eventually, it thinned to right above his ankles. Dragging the shovel behind him, he moved along to the trail, or what he believed was the trail. 

There was red speckled amongst a small area of snow not too far from the cabin. He dug with newfound strength. The cold had numbed his arms to the flexibility of stiff boards not long after he started. The blizzard had picked back up. Overwhelming and grey, the snow fell and whipped his face to where he would have believed icicles were forming on his skin. 

The shovel hit something. He took to the ground with his gloved hands, the red in the snow now scattered in clumps he had flung over his shoulder. 

The first thing he found was a damp, grey suitcase. As he dug more, a jacket appeared. More digging, and he found that the jacket was connected to pants, the pants connected to black boots. He moved further up, gloves touching firm flesh. He uncovered the body, the skin that became visible nearly blue. Dried blood was caked around the man’s broken nose and chapped lips; bruises spotted every inch of flesh below the half-lidded eyes. 

Gloves discarded, Harvey checked for a pulse but feeling only his own through the pressure. The wind grew stronger, swelling to the climax of the symphony, whistling in his ears. Harvey put the gloves back on his hands, even though snow covered them. He picked up the man bridal style with great difficulty; he was a lot heavier than Harvey expected. He decided to continue down the trail hoping to reach the town for a doctor, but the realization of not being able to carry the shovel thwarted his plans. There had to be a way around, he reasoned, as low as the possibility was. 

A grey haze shrouded the world, and the cold had long seeped down to his muscle and bone even with measures he took. The wind sliced his skin, and the man he held remained unresponsive. Despite the frigid air, he struggled through the snow, moving further from the town. 

He ended up in a clearing with tree stumps and a cracking, hollow sound below him persuaded him to step to the side. He moved with fervor and settled on a stump, the split wood digging into his thighs through the pants. He set the man down in between his legs with little care, and finally opened the thermos to warm his stomach. Bitter alcohol filled his mouth instead of the water he was sure - was he?- that he had put in there. The thermos fell from his hands, the drink spilling over the snow. Cravings crawled and scratched up his throat, the familiar taste clogging his brain and senses. 

He had been an alcoholic before, falling into the same trap as his father at twenty-five. At one point, he remembered, he even had a child. A gift he never thought he’d be blessed with, but his  _ brother,  _ his brother - well, he took her from him while he was too drunk to say goodbye. All he had were two bent pictures he never looked at, the memories turned to hatred rather than anything good. It was easier to forget his faults and lock everything away, and to avoid his brother. The resentment was low in his gut, boiling up past his lungs, rising past his throat, and seeping into his tongue; the taste of alcohol was still vivid in his mouth. 

He picked up the thermos, the blood stains on the bottom catching his eye. An epiphany hit his mind like a match striking against a matchbox. Suddenly, everything aligned. But he didn’t want to understand. He held the thermos next to the man’s head - not the man, someone he knew - and fell backward. Running to where he came from with snow getting in his wide eyes, forcing him to blink in rapid bursts, he could only wonder why he did what he did.

The door slammed shut, shadows filling the living room as soon as he stepped in. He tripped over empty beer cans that littered the floor and had to stop himself from laughing by holding his breath, leaving a choking sound in its wake.

“When did these get here?” He wondered aloud, his words booming in the emptiness. He got back up using the coffee table and blundered up the stairs into the bathroom. An empty pill bottle sat on the closed lid of the toilet, and he threw it in the trash can without a second glance. Using water from the sink, he splashed his face three times, reality still escaping him somehow. After, he sped by the locked room, shed his winter gear, and passed out in the bed. 

The next morning was quiet, deathly still against the panic swarming in his chest like wasps surrounding their nest. Without giving himself a second to think, he rushed out the door, the wind not even present to keep him distracted. He found the suitcase along the path and chucked it further into the woods, mind not catching up with his actions. The frore air pierced his skin, and goosebumps spread from his legs to his arms.

He ran as long as the cold would let him until he reached the clearing, something cracking once again under his feet. Vultures were ripping the tendons and fat from his brother’s corpse. The sound of muscles tearing apart was the only thing he could hear as they dug around his brother’s ribs, beaks clacking against bone. More blood splattered over the grey snow in the early morning, a sight he refused to see two days before. It was presented clearly to him now, a new art piece on full display. A few seconds passed, seconds that felt like years, and the  _ crack  _ finally reached his ears. Thin ice broke from his weight combined with the snow’s, and he fell into water, body seizing in it. The glacial water crystallized his lungs as he inhaled it, the shock opening his mouth by force. 

While sinking, he looked up and swore he could see the shadows of the vultures flying away, but the last thing he saw was the depths of the lake on which he had stood only moments before.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed; constructive criticism is encouraged. Thank you for reading.


End file.
